Smoke
by longingparadise
Summary: Stefan has changed to a person, Damon doesn't quite recognize and doesn't know how to deal with. Months under water appareantly leaves some effects behind. Picks up where Liz called Damon that they found a box. Qetsiyah never opened the box. Stefan is still in there instead of the other dead guy.


The first moment that indicated Stefan that he was out of the box, wasn't when the it was lifted from the ground of the lake. It wasn't when water stopped pouring in and not when the it was opened. He didn't react, because he didn't _notice_ people standing above him and his brother running his hand through his hair and whispering "I've got you, I've got you".  
He didn't feel how Damon carried him to into a car, nor was he aware of the ride where Elena and Damon desperately tried to get out a sound out of him. _Anything, Stefan, come on, please?_  
He stayed silent when his older brother carried him into the boarding house and didn't make any sign that he knew what happened, when Damon put him into a warm bath because he_ didn't_.

The first moment he actually started to feel slightly different than all those months under water, was when he sensed his skin go dry as Damon toweled him off.

Irritated, confused, his muscles started to tense and he finally _saw_.

Damon did, too, and he stopped his actions for a moment to look his little brother in the eyes. The green in them was more remarkable than ever in the dimmed room, standing out against Stefan's pale complexion.

Since Stefan still didn't make a sound, Damon resumed in dressing him into a thick hoodie and loose, comfortable cotton pants with the knowledge of his brother having finally snapped out of whatever state he was.

The foreign feeling of dryness and warmth and air, that Stefan had already forgotten overwhelmed him, making his senses go numb. He distantly felt Damon pushing him gently on his bed and tucking him in before leaving the room without switching the lamp on his bedside off.  
Stefan was grateful for it.

The softness, the temperature and the light comforted him and chased his thoughts away, as he felt himself slowly drifting into an exhausted sleep.

When he woke, it was because of Damon, who had his concerns about people sleeping two days through. For some time he simply looked at his older brother, who looked back with a strange expression. Like he was seeing Stefan truly for the first time.

"You must be hungry."

It was then Stefan noticed the bottle of blood in the other man's hand. But strangely, he didn't feel the pull towards it, like he always used to before. On the contrary, the last thing he wanted to do was getting out of his bed and having to put that_ liquid _and_ wet_ substance into him.

"I know you must be hungry and you won't be satisfied with one bottle, but I figured it would be better to get you slowly used to it again than making you drink fifty blood bags at once." Damon sounded somehow unsure, like he didn't want to indicate that blood had always been a critical topic when it came to Stefan.  
He heard it anyway, but he wasn't offended by it. He didn't care what his brother thought about his eating habits anymore.

"No, it's okay, thank you." Stefan's voice sounded scratchy and his throat itched.

Damon seemed surprised by his answer, or of the fact that that Stefan even decided to answer, maybe both.  
His big brother handed him the bottle and Stefan took it and uncapped it. He started to nip and take tiny gulps like a little child that forced himself to drink a medicine, which tasted disgusting.

The blue-eyed man frowned but didn't say anything as he warily watched his brother drink the bottle empty. It lasted half an hour, whereas a few months ago, Stefan would have downed it in ten seconds.

His little brother thanked him again with his low and sick sounding voice, before climbing under the blankets again and going back to sleep.  
Damon stood at his bedside all the time, eyeing this _boy_, whose corpse-like pale skin and too thin body didn't resemble the _man_ he used to know.  
Damon had come to experience, that vampires don't really gain or lose weight under normal circumstances. They were dead and didn't feel the need for food, although they could still taste it like humans did.  
Blood was the substance that gave them energy and when they'd have it in regular and considerable amounts they looked like healthy human beings. Under normal circumstances.  
Being caged in a box in a lake for months didn't count as normal, not even in the world of vampires.  
Stefan didn't look normal either. His cheeks were sunken and his eyes looked too big in his bony face.  
Damon remembered how clearly he could see his little brother's spine, grab his sticking out hipbones and count every single rip when he had bathed him days before. His wrists had resembled to sticks and Damon had tried not to grasp him too tightly, in fear that that he could break Stefan's limbs, like a child would break a twig. He was sure than that Stefan's body wasn't in a condition to heal anything.

Now two days had passed and Stefan had drunken a bottle of blood, which, comparing to what a normal vampire consumed in three months – well – nothing.

Despite knowing Stefan for 164 years, in that moment Damon thought he had never seen his brother looking so fragile before.

One day later, it was an evening, Stefan woke up again and despite being tired still, he decided to come out of bed. He had a strange feeling in his back when he sat up, and an even stranger in his legs when he stood up.  
He hesitantly walked into his bathroom and eyed the luxurious shower in the corner.  
He didn't notice that 20 minutes had passed when he finally decided that he needed to shower, no matter how disgustingly _wet _all that water would be.  
At least he could regulate how warm it would be.  
He made it as hot as possible.

After that, Stefan put on much more clothes than there would have been necessary and were unusual for the warm late summer weather, but he felt good in them.

Caroline was fidgeting nervously, while Elena was concerned and Jeremy felt uneasy. Damon hoped he didn't look similar to them, but somehow he doubted it.  
They all had heard that Stefan had gotten up and went into the shower. Damon managed to hold Caroline off of his brother, with the same method he used with Elena, while breathing out a relieved sigh that Stefan did something normal. He tried to ignore that he had stood in his bathroom for almost half an hour doing basically nothing.

When Stefan finally arrived downstairs, there was an uncomfortable silence, no one knowing what to say, which was broken by the sounds of Caroline's steps running into his direction and embracing him into a tight hug. Just like that, the tension in the room was gone, Stefan's slight frame melting into Caroline and her protecting arms, soft hair and smell of daisies.

Damon paid attention to Stefan like his little brother was five again and Damon the determined ten year old boy, who swore to protect him.

There were obvious things he noticed, which weren't hard to overlook.  
Like that he still wasn't drinking any blood. Stefan didn't once initiate to get himself a blood bag and only drank it, when someone brought him one. Then, he heated it up and Damon had never seen blood that Stefan intended to drink long enough in his hands, to even consider to heat it up.  
Damon made it his job to feed his brother himself and bring him a blood bag every few hours, if he had to, because he couldn't stand to see that gaunt look on Stefan's face anymore.  
He managed it a few times, before Stefan flat-out refused to drink it.  
Stefan was polite about it in a way he wasn't before and telling him "No thanks" and "Thank you, but I'm really not hungry…".

Damon wasn't that polite about it.

"Bullshit!" His voice was loud. Elena and Jeremy, who were sitting on the couch, watching some stupid movie looked startled. The atmosphere was tense, because Damon has broken a rule everyone silently agreed on. 'Don't make any indication towards Stefan that he looks like a fucking skeleton' was apparently one of them.  
He walked in Stefan's direction till he stood right in front of him and he was sure his brother could feel his breath on his face. He held Stefan's look as he spoke in a barely even controlled voice that was firm and contained a certain authority that all older brothers had but he rarely used with Stefan.  
"You will drink it or I will make you drink it." Damon wasn't bluffing and Stefan knew it.  
He took the blood bag without any further negotiation, sat at the far end of the sofa and started nipping at it.

There were other things that were different. Not little different, big different.  
Elena and Damon noticed it when Stefan didn't look longingly at his ex-girlfriend anymore. It was kind of strange because even if he had never tried to show it, he couldn't ever contain his love for her. It was something everyone was used to, because it had become one of Stefan's face features but now he was treating her like someone he used to know. Like a stranger. First, no one was really concerned because – well - he was treating everyone like that and maybe being isolated in a box for three months accompanied with never ending torture did that with people. They didn't know.

But when Damon and Elena kissed, just out of habit from the last few months they spend together, they parted and stared at each other with a shocked look on their faces. Another silent rule had been not to act that lovingly in front of Stefan. But Stefan acted as though he didn't notice and maybe he didn't. Maybe he doesn't care about it enough to do so.

There were little things only Damon noticed.  
Like Stefan not drinking any water or alcohol or really anything liquid besides blood that he practically forces him to.

Damon also notices how Stefan refuses to go out when it rains.

Or has agony written on his face when he forces himself to shower every day.

But what really surprises him most is, when Stefan starts to smoke.  
Of course, he had seen him smoke before. When they were still living with their father, a cigar belonged between the fingers of a wealthy man, like a tie, a strong horse or a good education, along with every other nonsense.  
Their father enjoyed it, Damon didn't mind it, but Stefan was disgusted by it. Not that he would tell it their father, of course not. Stefan wouldn't do that, the good, obedient boy.  
But he told his brother because he trusted him and would tell anything to him. He remembered that Stefan had made a face he rarely made when telling him that it was totally senseless to choke yourself with poisonous smoke while smiling and making deep conversation about politics and Shakespeare.  
Damon had laughed. It were those little things Stefan used to rebel against.  
Like eating meat. He ate often enough for Giuseppe not to notice and no further since he felt sorry for all those poor animals, which also have emotions and feelings (or so Stefan told).  
Some things have changed since then.  
Like Stefan's sense of morality when his basic need to survive became human blood.  
But the smoking had stayed.  
Damon had never ever seen Stefan smoke anything after their father's death anymore.  
So when he found Stefan, leaning out of the window in his room and inhaling the smoke like he never wanted to let it out again, Damon was surprised but didn't comment on it because he thought that this new habit of his little brother must have had other reasons than what he had experienced. He couldn't think of any connection between those two things.

But soon Stefan moved from an occasional smoke to having a cigarette between his fingers basically all the time. The smell of it quickly overwhelmed his usual scent of trees, grass and a field of different flowers.  
It was then, when Damon finally asked him where this new habit had come from. Stefan had murmured and stalled and hadn't really given any real answer because he knew exactly what his brother was on about.  
"They're not even that bad anymore. The taste has improved since the 19th century."  
Both brothers new that Stefan was telling a pig pile of bullshit and Damon was offended that Stefan even tried to fool him with his poor lying skills. That was the moment he knew that this had something to do with what have happened, although he didn't knew how exactly.  
Damon didn't say anything further but at the same evening he threw all of Stefan's Marlboros away. The neighbors watched him warily as he carried several cartons to the yard of the Salvatore mansion, spilled century old bottles of wine over it and threw a burning lighter on the pile.  
He remembered how their house had been surrounded by a weird smell of grapes, alcohol and nicotine weeks after that. Damon had grinned and the neighbors clearly thought he was a lunatic, who happens to have too much money.

When Stefan had arrived about an hour later, stepping out of Caroline's car, the ever so present cigarette between his fingers, he had a cautious look on his face. No doubt that he already caught the smell before. But when his younger brother realized what Damon had done at last, it was the first time he seemed angry since that event, which had changed him.  
The sense of relief that came over Damon was so hard he could have cried.

"What the hell have you done?" His voice wasn't quite right yet. It wasn't loud or accusing enough, but it was more than what Damon had gotten in the last month.

"Can't you tell?" He stalked towards Stefan and practically ripped the forgotten cigarette out of his fingers and tore it apart with his bare fingers while it was still burning. He was provoking him, he knew it, he aimed to.

"What is wrong with you?" The words were spoken soft with control. It ripped Damon's barely-there patience apart.

"No, Stefan. What the fuck is wrong with you? Just tell me what the hell your problem is! Tell me what hurts you! Tell me, so I can fix you!" It was more than Damon had intended to let out but it seemed to crack Stefan's tight hold of control.  
"I can't be fixed, Damon! Not from you, or from anyone! I wish it was something that some blood bags and some friends could glue together and make it work again, but that's not the way it is! You can't make it go okay!"

"But a cigarette can?" It was sarcastically spoken and Damon regretted it the moment he saw the broken look on the face of his little brother.

"At least, it stops feeling so _wet_ indside_._"

And then, Damon finally understood. He walked towards Stefan and guided him to their house, into the living room, in front of their fireplace, all the while having his arm around his brother's shoulders.  
He made Stefan sit down near to the warm flames and gave him a blanket he wrapped himself into.  
Without saying anything, he sat beside him, pretending not to notice, how his brother's eye had gone glassy from tears he didn't want to let out because they were so _wet._


End file.
